Framing, Context, and Content: How Thoughts and Thinking (Re)shape Your Reality

Our objective reality—which includes our relationships, careers, and all other aspects of our lives—is significantly shaped by our subjective reality—which is essentially the content of our minds: our thoughts and the way we think. This is because our thoughts and thinking processes directly influence our emotions, decisions, and, ultimately, our behaviours. 

The real challenge lies in the fact that multiple, and sometimes conflicting, ideas, facts, and perspectives can all be simultaneously valid and helpful, but rarely within the same frame or context.

Therefore, making the best decisions and shaping a meaningful existence for ourselves is a delicate art. An art that smart, educated, and even well-intentioned people mess up all the time.

For example, last month, a coach who has spent over five years helping people overcome pornography addiction, “shocked the internet” when she launched an OnlyFans account. As crazy as it all seems, she had a frame and context in which it all made sense to her.

In fact, during her 28-minute-long video where she was explaining the switch, I actually felt moved by her (stated) intent, and to a great extent, did find her perspective quite refreshing and helpful. Nevertheless, after analysing the frame and context from which she operated, I came to see why her decision might be out of place, ill-informed, and potentially harmful.

This piece isn’t going to be about judging her choice, but about how your thoughts become your destiny – how the frames you accept, the contexts you operate within, and the content you consume can lead you toward a dream life, or a nightmare.

And, of course, at the end of the piece, we will use all we’ve learned to dissect the case of the porn recovery coach turned OnlyFans content creator, just to help you internalise the points we will discuss. 

Starting with frames…

[Why] Framing Correctly Is Critical.

Randall Terry once said, “He who frames the question wins the debate.”, and I agree.

For example, a friend once asked me, “Would you love to have sex with a white girl?”

I told them I didn’t mind — I was open to being with anyone, regardless of race.

But they doubled down, “Suppose you travel abroad, wouldn’t you want to?”

Again, I gave the same answer — I don’t have a racial preference. Asian, African, European… they are all fine by me.

After much back and forth, they seemed frustrated by my refusal to give a simple yes or no to the question.

But I refused to give a simple yes or no answer to the question because I could sense the trap in the question: A “yes” might sound like I fetishise white women. While a “no” might sound like I discriminate or detest them, or maybe just have a preference for African women, which was not the case.

My friend, perhaps unintentionally, had framed the question in a way that forced a choice between two options I do not necessarily fit into.

So, I blurted out, “I reject the frame.”

The phrase was unusual, so there was an awkward pause. But I don’t mind awkward pauses.

I simply went on to explain that “If I’m single, I’m open to a relationship with anyone regardless of their race. If I’m in a relationship, I won’t long after another lady simply because she was a certain race which I have always preferred, because there is no such preference to begin with.”

As you can see, the initial frame would not only have made them “win” by labelling me as having racial preferences, but it would also have limited the value and moral weight of my answers (and interpretation of my actions).

Thinking a partner called because they miss you is different from thinking a partner called because they don’t want you to complain: one action, two different framings, and very different emotions. Framing things correctly is not just nice, it’s critical to how we feel, what we do next, and the reality we build.

Consider another example of a limiting frame: “Do you think Nigeria adopting green energy – like solar energy – as opposed to burning fossil fuel is a great idea?”

This question forces a binary choice. It assumes you’re either for or against “green energy”. But anyone with experience in this field can see how that can be myopic. 

Instead, if you reject this frame, you can open up a far more productive conversation: “What energy mix would most effectively address Nigeria’s energy poverty while being economically sustainable?”

From this better frame, we can examine practical considerations such as Nigeria’s abundant sunlight versus initial capital costs, or the immediate need for affordable energy solutions versus maintenance challenges down the line. We can even explore complexities the original frame obscured – like how critical materials for renewable energy (such as lithium for batteries) often involve intensive mining using non-renewable energy, or how Nigeria’s weak regulatory framework might create future environmental risks from battery disposal.

From the examples above, you can see that 

• A frame refers to the underlying assumptions, conditions, and constraints built into how a question or situation is presented and expected to be answered or approached.  
• Some frames are broader, better, and more helpful than others.
• But, more importantly, you can break free from a bad frame, and/or improve it.

It is important to understand that the goal isn’t to find and stick to the “good” frame, but to continuously update and improve the frame to be “better”. This transforms simplistic either/or debates into nuanced solution-oriented discussions.

But this is something most people struggle to understand, let alone do. And, it is exactly the reason internet debates can be maddening.

Just to stress the point, let me share another example: 

A few days ago, another friend asked me, “David, do men keep malice?”

It sounded funny to me, but I totally understood where they were coming from. They have, for most of their lives, heard that men are this way and women are that way – the false dichotomy which has fueled the endless debate, hate, and even fight between men and women on social media.

Anyway, instead of providing a simple yes or no answer (that false dilemma characteristic of bad framing), I responded by saying, “Men and women are the same. What matters is how the person develops their mind. While society helps shape men and women differently, ultimately, they are both capable of the same behavior. So, yes, a man is capable of malice, gossip, and any other thing women do.”

I practically improved the frame and then gave a better answer.

They burst out laughing, and the conversation moved to something else. Not a fight. 

Whenever you’re presented with narrow frames like “this or that,” you should be wary. Often, those are false dilemmas. And often, you can abandon or expand the frame.

For example,

– Go to church or be wayward.

– Be a Christian or be godless.  

– Be religious or be non-spiritual.

We can see the frame gradually expand from church to religiosity. But, even religiosity is not the largest frame to experience spirituality. One can be non-religious yet spiritual.

Think about love, sex, money, career, etc., in what ways are you living under a limiting frame? 

To improve framing, the key is to avoid broad strokes of assumptions and add nuance. 

However, even the best, most nuanced frames in the wrong context will still fall apart.

Context Is King(dom)

In the first conversation, I had repeatedly told my friend that I was open to dating anyone regardless of their race, but I didn’t have to go into detail to tell my friend that I must like the lady, or that we must be compatible, because that was already presupposed.

It is easier to see what I mean when you look at the second conversation with the other friend, where I said, “Men and women are the same.” I didn’t need to explain that I wasn’t talking about physical appearance. I trusted that they could infer the context from their initial prompt – which was about character and behaviour – that my response was in the domain of character and behaviour as well.

In other words, context refers to the shared background understanding and unspoken assumptions that allow communication to work without having to explain everything explicitly. 

Context is what fills in the gaps in our language – when I said I was open to dating anyone regardless of race, the context already included that I’d need to actually like the person. When I said men and women are the same, the context already attached behaviour to what was understood, while eliminating physical differences.

Context is what makes conversation efficient – we don’t have to start from scratch every time we speak. And that is exactly why teaching kids takes time, as you need to literally build the foundations of any meaningful conversation.

It is also why it is painfully frustrating to debate with someone who is approaching a topic from a whole different background. Worse, when they intentionally feign ignorance of the basics or drag the conversation away from the working, common assumptions.

For example, a common frustration I encounter when (religious) people talk about “God” is their confusion between a scientific (or ontological) argument and a metaphysical or metaphorical one. They often claim God is real in the ontological sense, which is like claiming Love is a physical object you can see and touch.

So, needless to say, it is important that sufficient context is provided, and both parties agree to discuss under it else, the conversation falls apart.

Context is king, though you could as well consider it the kingdom.

And, it is within the kingdom of the context that better frames are built.

But building the right frame within a specific context seems to be quite tricky (for most people).

Rejecting The Frame Within The Context

It’s important to understand that rejecting a bad frame and changing the context are two very different things: One elevates the conversation, while the other steers it into a ditch. 

For instance, when I rejected my friend’s frame about racial preferences, I stayed within the same context—we were still talking about attraction and relationships. The same thing with the conversation about malice – I stayed in the context of behaviour.

Changing context is different. If I had responded to “Do men keep malice?” by suddenly talking about testosterone, I would have yanked the discussion away from behaviour and character into a completely different domain of say, biology and physiology. Unless I have a good reason to, and eventually reconnect my argument to the prompt, then we’d no longer be having the same conversation. Which would be frustrating to say the least. The same thing if I had switched the conversation about attraction to be talking about racism or some other tangential matter; I might sound smart, but really not add anything meaningful to the conversation.

• Reframing is moving from monarchy to democracy. Changing context is moving from humans to ants.
• Reframing is moving from classroom to apprenticeship. Changing context is moving from learning to entertainment.
• Reframing is moving from bad to good. Changing context is moving from ethics to mathematics.

In simple terms, the Context is what you’re discussing. While the Frame is how it is being discussed. 

You can reject a bad frame while staying in the same conversation (and even introducing a better frame). But once you change the context, you’ve literally exited the conversation, and every point from then on becomes, well, pointless.

In a good conversation, everyone stays within the context while the frame gets improved – giving everyone a better perspective and understanding of what was being discussed. But in a bad conversation, people might switch contexts and stick to faulty frames – leading to confusion, frustration, and sometimes a worse understanding of what was being discussed.

Surely, you know someone who, when discussing politics, can’t help but divert the conversation from a politician’s competence and track record to their tribe and religion. They then try to frame their questions in a way that traps you in a false dilemma.

Talking about people who mess up contexts and frames, there is also another issue worth highlighting. 

The Trap In Jumping To Conclusions

It’s disgusting what some creators do on social media these days, especially since reels – very short videos – became a thing: They would intentionally trim a long video, presenting a clip without the necessary context, leaving viewers to jump into false conclusions, that is, if they don’t push the false frame/narrative in the description of the video.

For example, I once saw a clip where the creator had termed Oprah Winfrey a pedophile, and went on to post a clip that began mid-sentence, “…if you’re seven years old and someone is stroking your penis it feels good right even though you don’t have a name for what that, is it feels good.” Even though, in the full clip, she was simply trying to make a point to explain to her audience that child sexual abuse is not always like say an adult throwing the kid up a wall and forcing them, it is often subtle, and by someone the kid trusts, so that they don’t even know they are being abused, until say they grow up.

People do things like this all the time. Sometimes they even edit the videos to create a string of words that might sound damning even when the author might have said something entirely different, or had said it in a different context.

But, aside from such malevolent intents, there are also instances where we simply receive information or arguments without sufficient context and then jump to false conclusions.

For example, people often assume I must be wealthy or have a massive social media following perhaps it’s because I sell a writing course, have written a couple of books, and write confidently and passionately on my WhatsApp status. So, seeing me as a “Coach” or “Expert” they assume I have everything figured out and would be rich. Yet nothing in what they’ve seen (nothing I have shared) actually suggests I’m wealthy or have my life completely sorted—they’re filling in gaps with assumptions.

And, this points to the third head of this hydra we are discussing: Content.

The Content of Our Worlds Are Very Different

You see, people often have very different content constituting their contexts as well as frames.

For example, currently in Nigeria, the idea of working from home is NOT always being translated as someone with digital skills offering services to people remotely. Rather, the predominant assumption is that a young man who makes money without leaving home is an internet fraudster. That is the content people have about “people who make money from the internet” based on what they see and hear every day in the country.

And, I can’t blame them. Internet fraudsters have run amok in the country, and fraud is now so normalised that they even call their victims “clients,” family members (including parents) pray for them to “succeed”, and the police smile and wave at them as they cruise in their exotic cars. In fact, the entire EndSARS protest of 2020 that almost escalated into a war was mostly because the SARS officers were increasingly harassing, extorting, and even killing people who fit into the stereotype – i.e. “young + affluent” = “Fraudster” (which is a faulty frame). Now, after the EndSARS protest, though I don’t have the data, I suspect just from what I see, that the number is actual fraudsters has most likely doubled.

Anyway, the reason I highlighted this issue is that we sometimes make the mistake of assuming the context we have given was understood or unwrapped the same way we do. But that is not always the case (especially if they are random strangers on the internet).

And, the more you understand this, the more you come to terms with the fact that some people WOULD NEVER get you. Because the content of their context is different from yours. 

Their understanding of: Love/hate, cold/hot, trauma/healing, pain/pleasure, trust/distrust, skepticism/faith, home/away, ignorance/learning, poverty/wealth, neglect/intimacy, men/women, pride/shame, success/failure, and pretty much anything you can think of is drastically different from yours.

To successfully explain your context to them would practically mean collapsing their world and bringing them into an entirely new one. That is, if they don’t reject it, attack you, or simply label you delusional.

Talking about delusional…

We Live In Different Worlds: The Power of Being Delusional

When someone is labelled delusional, it is often within the frame of that person being out of touch with reality. But, as you might have started to suspect, reality can mean different things for different people.

I still vividly remember when a lady whom we always loved buying things from her store, went to a bigger store across the road to stock up her shop. It was a bit confusing, because we bought exactly the same price from her as we did at the bigger store across the street. So, how is it that she is going to buy from them and then come back to sell to us again at the same price? Well, the reality was that even though she had bought the same quantity as we, she had placed her order as a retailer, not a final consumer.

How she saw and approached the world made all the difference. Reality shifted when she shifted her approach, and she could shift her approach because she saw a different reality from final consumers.

But, this isn’t just about getting a discounted price or not. It is why:

• One guy can have 5 girlfriends at once, and another will be single for years on end.
• One person can tell you there are a lot of money-making opportunities in the country, and another can tell you there aren’t.
• One person might tell you men are scum or women are sluts, and another will tell you men are very reliable or women are a blessing.
• One person can be at peace, while another might not be able to sleep well at night.

The physical reality might be the same, yet we live in very different worlds with drastically different possibilities.

And, sometimes, you have to desire, seek, and persist in a reality that is so far removed from where you currently are that it appears “delusional” to others—even though it is possible. By “delusional,” I don’t mean ignoring facts or dismissing valid feedback. In fact, I mean stubbornly sticking to facts and findings that suggest you can achieve what you want, despite the constraints and despite the limited (or absence of) external validation around you.

• If the visionary guy thinks that despite being broke and short they can get a rich and beautiful girlfriend, give them time and that might just become real—through personal growth, confidence building, and expanding social circles.
• If the ambitious lady who struggles with English thinks they can work with a big media company, give them time and that might just become real—through dedicated practice, skill development, and strategic networking.
• If the young Nigerian whose father was a mechanic thinks they can one day become financially free and never have to work with their hands, give them time, and that might be real—through education, building assets, and capitalising on compounding and leverage.

Of course, external constraints matter—economic systems, social barriers, and resource limitations can’t simply be wished away. And, not all such aspirations succeed. But remember that all that succeeded aspired. 

Or to put it more bluntly, not everyone who was delusional made history, but everyone who made history was, at some point, delusional.

But, how do you even start to see a different reality, when all around you suggests otherwise? In other words, how do you become strategically “delusional” while remaining grounded in practical action?

Build Your Own World

They say you end up being like the five people you surround yourself with. That isn’t just some clever talk. Apart from there being neuroscientific evidence that the people around you influence your mood and brain waves, those people are directly responsible for the:

• Content that gets into your head
• The context which you dwell mostly on, as well as
• The frame in which you think and discuss topics

In other words, they determine not just your thoughts, but how you think about your thoughts.

This, of course, is more than just peer pressure. Everything that contributes to how one thinks matters:

• The words you hear – the conversations you have or listen to
• The content you consume – the people you follow on social media
• The books you read – the authors whose worldview you’ve absorbed

They all contribute.

Too many people allow all of those factors to be determined by their environment – they stay in touch with what is going on around them, and so, like a sponge, they absorb everything. This is how they absorb their religious views, political stance, as well as professional pursuits.

While this can be good in many cases, when you have a society that is decaying, this becomes a bad way to live. In cases like this, it is often better to be selectively “out of touch with reality”. This doesn’t mean ignoring all external feedback or dismissing legitimate concerns, but rather being intentional about which inputs shape your thinking.

In fact, with the awareness of this – how the content, context, and frame of your thinking are influenced and how they translate to the life you end up experiencing – it only makes sense to actively choose to strive to make a better reality your reality. 

This requires substantial effort and doesn’t always guarantee success, but it’s surely better than the alternative: living without anything to aspire to, or worse, reinforcing bad frames, missing better contexts, or continually allowing the mind to be flooded with unhelpful, limiting, or toxic content.

You want to sort your vocabulary, curate your beliefs, update your mindset, and persist in the reality you want to be in—while remaining open to course corrections when evidence suggests better paths.

For me, it has been choosing to make an impact with writing. To another, it might be choosing to inspire with photography. And to you, it might be something completely different.

Be delusional enough to choose a better reality. Be determined enough to make it real.

Case Study: The Porn Addiction Coach Turned OnlyFans Creator

Let’s return to Heather Nielsen, the porn recovery coach who launched an OnlyFans account, and see what happened through the lens of frames, contexts, and content .

Her Frame

I have seen a couple of her videos, and she seems to operate within this frame: “Traditional recovery doesn’t work because shame drives addiction, so I need to remove shame by normalising and providing ‘healthy’ sexual content to my vulnerable clients.”

This frame contained several hidden assumptions: 

• that shame is the primary driver of addiction, 
• that the solution to shame is normalising whatever the person is ashamed of, and 
• that she personally must become part of the content ecosystem so she can serve her clients a healthy form of sexual content (for their healing).

This frame is problematic because it limits the issue to just “shame”, hence presenting the false dilemma of either “fighting/rejecting” what you are ashamed of, or “accepting/consuming” what you are no longer ashamed of.

A better frame might have been: “How can we help people develop genuine agency over their sexual behaviours while addressing root psychological needs?”

This reframe would have led to completely different solutions, such as helping clients understand their triggers (which might include embracing the naturalness of their desires), developing emotional regulation skills (which might include dealing with shame), building deeply meaningful and fulfilling lives (which might including getting a partner) that naturally reduce compulsive behaviors, and so on.

In her defence, she does seem to talk a lot about these – at least, on her YouTube channel and Social media handle.

Let’s proceed to …

Her Context 

Many Porn Stars have transitioned to OnlyFans, and it was not considered strange. Why? Because they stayed aligned within the context of adult entertainment. Which, depending on your values, is not particularly wrong. 

But what got everyone talking was that she, more or less, switched contexts – from “helping people stop it” to “helping people enjoy it.”. 

I can’t say either stance is wrong, but I can say they are very contradictory, especially considering she hasn’t stopped selling her program on “quitting” while she is now “feeding”

Claiming she intends to still primarily to help vulnerable people overcome shame and guilt seems disingenuous—it’s like promising to teach the Kama Sutra in a church. The context simply doesn’t align, and the whole premise falls apart.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly,…

Her Content

In her clips and blog posts, she has:

• Repeatedly highlighted hearing numerous stories from people explaining why they struggle to quit porn (all to no avail).
• Demonstrated being well-read on how deeply sexuality is wired into the human psyche, making resistance largely futile.
• Shared personal stories about growing up in a strict religious background where sex was heavily laden with shame and taboo.
• Shared essays on her change of values, specifically switching to “Natural Religion”.
• Confessed that many of her clients have become attracted to or attached to her.
• Admitted that her original business model—helping men quit porn—proved challenging.
• Acknowledged facing financial struggles as a single mother (raising at least two children).

And so on.

The Insight

As someone who switched from being the preacher to telling people to maybe stop listening too much to the preacher, I can understand the tremendous effort it takes to let go of frames and contexts that no longer serve you.

However, here’s the issue: No one needs 40 reasons to explain why they eat or avoid jumping into a lion’s den. The simple, direct reason “I don’t want to die” suffices, often without need for explanation. Similarly, the most straightforward reason people open OnlyFans accounts is to make more money, not to help men overcome shame around sex.

I stopped being religious because it stopped making sense to me—it felt ridiculous to keep believing when evidence pointed otherwise. I transitioned to self-help and personal development, sometimes writing about issues with religion and limiting beliefs.

If being an anti-porn addiction coach stopped making sense to her, and she genuinely wanted to help people with sexual shame, there were clearer paths: clinical sexology, sexuality education, psychosexual therapy, intimacy coaching, or holistic sexuality advocacy. These would have aligned with her new values without appearing to monetise her existing audience of struggling people.

So, maybe it’s time for you to reflect on your own life and decisions. Maybe it’s time you honestly examine your own frames, contexts, and content. See what needs rejecting or improving.

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” ― Lao Tzu

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